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As we forgive those who do wrong is my parsing of the traditional words of the Lord's Prayer


As we forgive those who do wrong 
is my parsing of the traditional words of the Lord's Prayer
As we forgive our debtors 
As we forgive those who trespass against us 
Both of these constructions are less telling these days 
As we forgive those who do wrong covers the waterfront 
of things we need to forgive on a daily basis 

We are forgiving a whole lot of people 
including people we have already forgiven 
when our forgiveness has been less than effective 
We forgive those we know have harmed us in word and deed 
And we forgive those whose actions are harming us 
even though they may not know it and are far away 
We forgive everyone daily 

But the most the most important word in this beyond forgive 
is common to all versions - as 
This points to the reciprocal contractual covanental nature 
of this massive transaction 
We are forgiven by Abba AS we forgive 
This is the only condition in the prayer but it is the key to everything 

Go to South Africa where they have made 
forgiveness a national priority I
t is not perfect but imagine this happening in America 
Impossible in our poison climate 

To be forgiven is to stand free 
To obtain this freedom we must daily forgive everyone 
It does not mean we do not battle 
It means we battle for the values 
not for the pleasure of destroying folk 
And if we are destroying folk 
we need to look to our values 

The key ones are tolerance democracy helpfulness and non-idolatry


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"Sto Perigiali" One of the Surpassingly Best Tunes Theodorakis Has Written

A Setting for a Poem "Denial" Beloved by the Greek People by the Nobel Prize Winning Poet Giorgos Seferis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhk0ckaCxDI
The remarkable video at the link above is of a performance of "Sto perigiali" Mario Frangoulis and Mikis Theodorakis in 2001.

Frangoulis and Theodorakis are joined by musicians, including two bouzouki players, and a very large audience that is completely familiar with the words. The audience joins in at Frangoulis' prompt.

This is my very favorite Theodorakis melody. Those who know Theodorakis only for his "Zorba" music are in for a treat. When I was in Athens in 1966, for a short period of study with Constantinos Doxiadis, I knew nothing of Theodorakis. But about five years later, my friend Irene Vassos sang "Sto perigiali" to us. I have never gotten the tune out of my mind.

Later, when Irene joined our group to form a travelling company performing "New Rain", I learned to pick out a …
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Stephen C. Rose Bio

Stephen C. Rose (1936-) was born in New York City and raised there. He currently lives there. He was educated at Trinity, Exeter, Williams and Union Theological Seminary. He served in the Student Interracial Ministry in Nashville. He founded and edited the prize-winning Renewal Magazine in Chicago and studied with C. A. Doxiadis in Athens. His first books "The Grass Roots Church" and "Who's Killing The Church" established him as a prominent critic of American Protestantism and American religion. He was and remains a civil rights activist. He has interviewed and done in depth pieces on Saul Alinsky and Martin Luther King, Jr. He won awards for editorial courage and for two documentary films. He has written and published many songs and musical works including "We Are All Americans". During the late 90s and early 2000s he worked for UN agencies, most recently editing CHOICES Magazine at UNDP. Since 2000 he has written several books for distribution via K…
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